Do you have a story to share about how you’ve been affected by opioid use? Whether you've personally experienced addiction or whether you've dealt with the issue secondhand — as a friend, family member, treatment provider, a neighbor or otherwise — we want to hear from you.

There are a few ways to weigh in.

Send us a voice memo. If you have an iPhone or Android, or another device that allows you to record voice memos, you can record your story using a voice recorder app of your choice and send it to opioidproject@nhpr.org. If you’re new to using audio recorders on your phone, we recommend checking out these helpful instructions from WNYC before you get started. (Just make sure you email your recording to opioidproject@nhpr.org, not the address for WNYC’s project!) We recommend using the prompts below (keep scrolling) as a jumping-off point for your recordings.

Leave us a voicemail. We set up a phone line to collect your stories about opioid use. Call 603.513.7799, and leave us a message about how you’ve been affected. Space is limited, so we recommend using one of the prompts listed below (keep scrolling) as a way to focus your response. By leaving a message here, you are agreeing that NHPR can use this audio in our reporting online or on-air. You don’t have to leave your full name with your message, and we won’t publish your phone number anywhere. Someone from NHPR will contact you if we’re interested in using your recording.

Add your story to this survey. If you’re comfortable and ready to record, we recommend just jumping in using one of the above options. If you want to tell us about your experiences but aren’t sure you want your story to be public, or if you have suggestions for issues you think we should be looking into, we invite you to weigh in using the form right here.

No matter which method you use, one of our reporters will follow up with you before we publish your responses. NHPR reserves the right to lightly edit the audio or text you submit for clarity or length, but we’ll be careful not to misconstrue your perspective or take your words out of context.

What kind of stories are we looking for?

We're looking for stories from all sides — parents, providers, people personally affected or otherwise. Feel free to tell your story in the way that makes the most sense to you, but here are some questions that might help you to give you a sense of where to start and what we're hoping to focus on. You can choose to answer as many or as few of these as you’d like, but we recommend trying to keep your answers to two minutes or less for each response. (We can help with editing, if needed.)

How have you been impacted by the opioid crisis? (This doesn’t have to be too long or detailed, whatever is most comfortable for you: “I’m in recovery…” “My brother/sister/child/parent has struggled with addiction…” “I work in treatment/prevention/recovery…”)

What was the most important turning point in your or your loved one’s path to seeking help?

What worked well for you or your loved one when seeking help? What didn’t work?

What does New Hampshire still need to fix when it comes to helping those struggling with addiction?

What do you think about the approach the state seems to be taking right now to address this issue?

What do you need more of, from state officials broadly or from treatment/recovery providers?

What do you wish more people understood about opioid addiction or the people affected by it?

What is the most important lesson you’ve learned about addiction? (Or, how has this most changed you?)

Some tips, if you’re new to audio recording

It’s best if you try to record your story in a quiet location with little to no background noise. This project is all about your voice, so we want to make sure we can hear you as clearly as possible!

It’s OK if you sound unscripted — or if you say “like” or “um,” or need to take a pause. We want these to sound natural, like you’re telling your story to someone one-on-one.

If you’re nervous about recording, but don’t want to sound too formal, it might help to jot down some notes for yourself to identify the important points, stories or moments that most illustrate the points you hope to make. Even just a few simple reminders or phrases might help you to feel more comfortable about what you’re going to be saying. (But feel free to just pick up the phone and start recording without a script, too!)

If you have any questions at all (about what we’re looking for, or on the technical side of things), feel free to reach out to us at opioidproject@nhpr.org — someone from our team will follow up with you as soon as possible.

Jim and Jeanne Moser were unaware that their 27-year-old son was struggling with addiction until a state trooper knocked on their door to inform them Adam was found dead from an apparent fentanyl overdose. Now, the Mosers are trying to use their family's story to encourage others to talk more openly about the risks of prescription drug abuse, early and often.

(The audio and transcript below have been lightly edited for clarity.)

Jeanne: Well, you know we struggled with, What are we going to write? And your first instinct is to feel shame. And to hide it. And we have learned, it's not shameful. That there's no discrimination, that it hits everybody.

Adam Moser's death has spurred his parents to speak out about the dangers of prescription drug abuse. (Casey McDermott/NHPR)

So, very quickly, we all decided as a family — Jim and I and Adam's three siblings — we said, let's just tell the truth because everybody's gonna ask anyway, and we're going to get hit over and over again.

I'm glad we did. Because it was just a plea to other people who read it, and a lot of his friends, to just say: Please, don't even think about touching drugs. There's no do-overs with opioids. There's no going back. You take it, you're done.

As hard as that was, right away we had quite an outpouring of not only the media but friends and family and people we didn't know to just say thank you for being so candid, you know, and it just kind of escalated from there.

Jim: How could we have never — how did we miss that? We had a lot of conversations about drugs and alcohol in general. But nothing about prescription pills.

Looking back, we didn't respect opioids, because we were never educated to respect them. So that's where this whole thing (comes from) about not blaming healthcare, just saying: Going forward, healthcare is a great place to educate people. Because that's where the whole thing starts. Opioids are an essential part of healthcare, they're not going to go away. We might as well — when people take them home, they respect them.

We had them in our kitchen spin-around. Right next to the salt... pepper... opioids... cake sprinkles... Absurd, you know? Because we didn't think anything of it. We just kept them around like an Aspirin. And that's not the thing to do. So Adam got ahold of those. That was part of the whole thing, but certainly a contributor.

Jeanne: Not knowing what an opioid was, I had always heard the term painkiller. I had no idea the effects on people. You heard that they were addictive, but I didn't understand why. I just didn't understand the whole thing. So when I had hand surgery, Jim had knee surgery, I just — it just made me fall asleep. I didn't want to take them. It didn't take the pain away. But apparently, they affect everybody in different ways. We just didn't know the consequences of it.

Jeanne: So many people have asked us, What are the signs? What should we look for as parents? I wish that there was a one, two, three — these are the three things. Unfortunately, there's not.

It's a silent, secretive hobby, as Adam called it. And I think people can get away with it for a while, taking prescription pills. But even taking prescription pills, that escalates to needing more and stronger pills.

So, you know, he was able to have a job, but he never had any money. Did we know that? No. We kind of learned that after the fact. So a lot of these warning signs were shared after he was dead. Because one person thought, Oh, well, he never had any money. Another one's like, Oh, that's why he didn't go on a job interview, because he was going to be drug tested. We didn't know any of those things. It's not clear-cut in that way, except that maybe behaviors get more reckless, and they're more accident-prone.

I think that's what's so scary... Nobody sets out to do fentanyl or heroin. But when they get to that point and it's still hidden, there's not a lot of time between life and death. I wish that I had an answer to give people.

Jim: We're just all about education, because we never had that conversation. Do we know that would've saved Adam's life? No. But do we know we would've had a better chance by having the conversation than by not having it at all? Absolutely.

So that's what we're pleading to other parents — to have the conversation, even if it doesn't go well. Have it. A lot of people are afraid to have it because they're afraid of how it will go, they don't know how to manage it. And that's difficult. Maybe there's some credibility to helping parents discuss that, you know, guidelines. But in the end you kind of got to go with the way it works for you.

The main thing is to have the conversation. We never did that, and then we were careless with the product itself.

Adam was a smart kid, and he definitely pushed the envelopes... But he wasn't an unhappy sober person. He wasn't unhappy sober. He just would do this, once in a while, and then once you get pills involved, then you do become addicted, and you're no longer behaving the way that you would. Then it's a battle. And it's something you have to admit to, and I don't think he ever got to that point, either. Thought he could take care of it all on his own. And he failed.

Channelling Grief Into Lessons Learned, Prevention to Help Others

Wishing they knew more about the importance of carefully storing and disposing prescription drugs, the Mosers are now trying to partner with local hospitals and other medical institutions on an awareness campaign to encourage safe handling. (Casey McDermott/NHPR)

In a recent letter penned to family and friends, the Mosers wrote: We will carry to our grave regret for never, ever having a prescription opioid pain pill conversation with Adam. They urged others to make sure to have those conversations, "specific to opioids," with as many loved ones as possible.

"As a parent, living with that, that's why we're babbling about this," Jim says. "I think if Adam had known these things were potentially fatal and still did it... That gets into the whole substance and addiction. But never having had the conversation, as a parent, there’s a lot of responsibility in that. So we’re just trying to make sure nobody else does the same thing."

A few years ago, just days before Lin Huelle found out her son, Adam, was addicted to heroin, she remembers seeing a friend's Facebook post about the increasing share of emergency resources going toward overdose victims: 'We should just let them all die,' Lin remembers thinking at the time.

She's learned a lot in the years since — but so has Adam. It was a painful path for the whole family before he eventually decided to get treatment, but he just celebrated his two-year recovery anniversary on March 7.

(The audio and transcript below have been lightly edited for clarity.)

Lin's Story, In Her Own Words

About three years ago, I found out that my son was addicted to heroin. I found out that he had actually been experimenting with it two years prior to that. He had been trying other drugs, as well.

When I found out that Adam was using, I didn’t quite know what to do because I didn’t know anything about what an opioid was, so I educated myself to the best of my ability. I did this by going to forums that I saw the state had put on about our opioid crisis. I also read, I networked with anybody and everybody who could give me any sort of answers about how people get over their addiction. I learned about what it must feel like to be a person who was going through substance misuse.

My son lived at home. And every day he would come home, and I learned to look in his eyes and notice that pinpoint pupil or notice him nodding off. I decided to have a conversation with him — I had several conversations with him — but this one, I said, 'You know, you think that you can overcome this on your own, so I’ll give you that. I’ll give you a month. And if you can overcome this, well that’s wonderful, but if you can’t, I want you to go to recovery or rehab. And if you don’t do that, then I’m going to have to ask you to move out.'

So about a month later, nothing was changing, and I said to him one morning, 'If I asked you to pee in a cup, would you test negative for a drug test?' And he said no, and I said, 'Then I’m going to have to ask you to move out.' I sat on his bed, and the tears started streaming down his face. I went into autopilot and said to him, 'When I come home tonight from work, I don’t want you here.' And of course he said, 'Well, it’s cold out there... Where am I going to stay?... It’s such short notice...' And I said, 'I gave you a month.'

I went to work, and I came home and found that my son did move out. And it was so cold out. And all I could think about was, Where was he? Was he someplace warm? Is he going to be okay? But I had to do it. I asked him, I don’t know, maybe a year ago — what was it that actually made him decide to get help? And he said, 'You know, Ma, it was pretty cold out there.' So, he said, 'I guess that would have been it.'

One evening, about a month after he had been living in his car or at other people’s homes, he sent me a text and he asked if I could make sure that his job stayed, that he didn’t lose his job. And I said I will do the best I can, because he said I was wanting help. Immediately, we met at the house and we drove him to recovery, a rehab, and he stayed there for 28 days. I think it was really good that he went there — the reason being is when they go to rehab, they learn about the science of how they become addicted and what these drugs do to them. They also learn about the fact that we all have certain genes that give us more of a predisposition to become addicted. That’s real eye-opening thing, because I tried telling him that many, many years ago. And they wouldn’t listen to me, of course, because I am the mother. But they heard it from people who are in the business of saving people through rehabilitation, and I guess it really made an impact on him. So I was really glad about that.

I can tell you what didn’t work, and that’s the difficult part. Because what didn’t work is people who knew me and knew Adam, and they knew that he was using heroin, but they never told me. And I know they were frightened to do so. I know it’s a horrible topic. But my son could’ve lost his life, and had this information come to me before I found out the way I did, I think we could have nipped this in the bud sooner and maybe not have to go through all the hell that we went through when he was in active addiction. What I would certainly recommend to anybody out there would be if you know that there’s somebody who is actively using, please tell their family, tell somebody, so at least that they’ve got a heads up. You know, I didn’t understand why my youngest son was locking his door. And I didn’t understand why I was missing things, I thought I was losing my mind. It didn’t occur to me that my son was stealing from me, I never would have thought that in my wildest dreams. So I think you really need to come forward and share this information, because you really could be saving somebody’s life by doing that.

One of the most important things I wish people would understand about addiction and opioid use is that it can happen to anybody. All walks of life. And they don’t all look like junkies on the street. They’re just your average person. And they can go from having everything to having nothing, or worse. And they all have someone out there that loves them, or at least someone who knows them. So you know, i think you have to look at one person at a time and just treat them with respect and help them make positive choices in their life.

Three nights before I found out that Adam was using, I was reading something out of a Facebook comment, and it had something to do with the opioid crisis going on in our city. And I was commenting on how, geez, our ambulances are being used to take care of all these addicts, and all they want to do is overdose. And then we save them by Narcan, and then they go back out and use again, and O.D., and it’s just not fair to those people who may need to be rescued by an ambulance and by the emergency team — you know if they’ve got a heart attack or something — when all these people, all these addicts are using. I was very frustrated about it, and I said, you know, geez, we should just let them all die. Those words came out of my mouth, and my son was the one hearing what I said. And I had no idea that he was also using. So I think I’ve learned a lot, and again these people were somebody’s little boys and little girls. And they are loved. And recovery can happen.

Adam's Story, In His Own Words

Everyone looks at drug users and thinks, Oh, they're just junkies. This and that. They just really went down the wrong path. They're still good people, obviously, they just need help.

In high school, I used to party a ton with my friends, and the group I hung out with — you'd get out of school or work or whatever on a Friday, and we'd all meet up, and we'd be drinking. And I guess whatever showed up to the house, we'd be doing. I think heroin ended up coming one night. It just stuck. Out of everything, that's what stuck.

(Eventually, I was) homeless, kind of couch-surfing. Life was kind of rock bottom. You find that kind of hits you out of nowhere.

You just kind of sit there and weigh your options. Where do I go from here? I mean, I was going nowhere. So, like, alright, I guess this is what I've got to do.

I went to The Farnum Center. When I left there, a month or two later — I'm really into cars, so I bought one of the cars I've always wanted. Now, any of my free time and money really goes into that. You can't really be on drugs and be trying to follow your dream at the same time. So that keeps me motivated, keeps me where I have to be. I think you'd consider that like a new addiction, if anything.

I think about it off and on. If I had seen into the future, that this was how it was going to be, I probably still would have done the same thing. It's how I am, I guess. It's just a good life lesson — you can see how bad something really is, and it kind of makes you appreciate what you have even more.

Adam and Lin, On Adam's Path to Recovery

(Below, Adam's replies appear in bold.)

Adam felt that this problem is his, and he was going to take care of it on his own.Do you think that you could have actually done that on your own? No. Not a chance.

And I often wondered about that. Because I always told my boys, you can do anything you put your mind to.I said to him, 'Go ahead, try it.' It was really, really hard to see him struggle. The most important thing for him was his job. He's always been a really hardworking person. And he said, 'Promise me I won't lose my job.' And I said, 'I'll do my best.' And so he was able to keep his job, and (a recovery advocate) that I met, I called her right away. I said, 'Adam is ready.' We flew home, met Adam, she called (The Farnum Center), said, 'This kid's ready.' Got him right into detox.

The great thing about talking to other people and getting rid of the stigma is that when you can talk about it, you can connect with people, and somebody knows something that can get you somewhere. It's really important.

....................................................

Now, because I'm so aware, every time I drive into a parking lot, I look around me. I'm afraid of finding somebody. And I just know that person has somebody that loves them, I would hope. And you don't want to see that. I mean, things turn around. This kid's great. He did this, on his own, and that's something to really be proud of.

....................................................

I honestly couldn't be happier. Do you ever still have that craving? No, it does go away. That's a good thing. Yeah.

Pam's son is in long-term recovery from addiction, including heroin use.When he first sought treatment more than a decade ago, Pam says there were few places for her to turn for help in New Hampshire. Today, she's glad there's more public awareness and slightly less stigma around addiction— but she says there's still a long way to go.

(The audio and transcript below have been lightly edited for clarity.)

Pam's Story, In Her Own Words

I am in recovery from the effects of a family member’s addiction. In this case, my son’s, which included long-term heroin use.

The most important moment for me was when I was able to accept that my son has a chronic relapsing brain disease — and that what I could do was to let him know that I would never lose hope for his recovery, that I had confidence in his ability to get well, and that I’d always be there for him.

What worked for me was being able to talk about this stuff without shame and secrecy, because those two things are the main ingredients in stigma. And stigma is what keeps people who have this disorder from coming forward to get the help they need.

What didn’t work for me was having to listen to other people talk about, for example, some young person who’d just been arrested on drug charges, and to hear them speculate in such a judgmental and shocked way about what a horrible home life or what terrible parents this kid must have. Because I knew that my kids were loved and nurtured and protected. And I knew that my home was safe and sound. But I also realized that I was surrounded by a lot of ignorance — and that even though I believe ignorance is a curable disorder, the people who have it need to be interested in curing their ignorance. And many were not.

I wish more people realized that addiction is a disorder. It’s not a choice. It’s not a moral failing. Even when I listen to well-intentioned news programs or forums about the opioid epidemic, I hear the interviewer probing one of the panelists for juicy stories about his or her years of active use and addiction for entertainment value. And it’s about time that we focus on treatment and recovery. I mean, do we dwell on how someone with obesity-related diabetes used to have binge-eating episodes or how they had out of control weight gain or were unable to follow a sensible diet? I mean, we don’t want to hear those war stories.

I also wish that more people understood that this is a chronic disorder. And that means like other chronic disorders, such as heart disease, asthma, I mean hypertension and of course diabetes, they have to be treated with long-term management, and not just acute care.

I’ve learned over the years of my encounters with this disease that opinion cannot hold a candle to those with experience. We have to listen to those with experience. And not to those who have only theories and opinions to offer.

These Days, Pam Sees 'A Lot of Lip Service' From Policymakers

What I see, unfortunately, I see a lot of lip service among our policymakers, our politicians, our public officials. Because they recognize that there is a grassroots movement for addiction recovery support and services, and they recognize that it is a healthcare crisis. They recognize that there's an opioid disaster going on, in this state and certainly other states. So they talk the talk.

But then you see what agenda they're actually pushing or legislating, and it turns out they really want more law enforcement. They really want to get those bad drug pushers off the street. It's a very popular, sadly popular, stance. And that, mostly, I attribute to ignorance. Because people haven't really taken the time to think about how our war on drugs, which has been going on for 100 years, is a total failure.

If you look at the prohibition of alcohol, you can see all the bad things that came from that. We have the same thing going on. You have the illegal trade, which is hugely lucrative, and you have a huge demand. As long as you have a demand, I don't care how many drug pushers you pick off the streets. A lot of these dealers are really just small-time dealers and they're just selling to feed their own habits. They're not the big pushers.

So we have a program in New Hampshire called 'Granite Hammer,' which is just going to put more money into law enforcement, which is so expensive. Not only law enforcement, but going through the courts — I know the process, since I worked in the courts — and it's just not the way to deal with this. People don't get healthy and don't get into recovery by being shamed or by being punished.

Ed McDonough has experienced the addiction crisis from both sides.He developed a substance use disorder as a young adult, and only after a wake-up call in the form of an arrest was he able to find treatment through a program in Massachusetts. Now, he serves as the Chief Operating Officer of GateHouse Treatment, a program based in Nashua.

(The audio and transcript below have been lightly edited for clarity.)

Ed's Story, In His Own Words

The turning point for me in my own recovery, as a college athlete and someone who was respected in the community, was when I was charged with a crime I never wanted to be a part of. That sent a message to those around me and to my friends and family that this was no longer something I could hide or try to control. The gig was up, as they say.

It affected my life. It took away job opportunities, loved ones' trust, friends' trust, and I needed to take a look at the bigger picture to see what I was struggling with. And I notice a lot in the early stages of recovery of the people that I help nowadays that that’s kind of the same thing, when they can no longer live the lifestyle that they’ve become accustomed to. Or they’ve had so much pain in their personal journey that they would like to make a change.

What has worked well for me when seeking help was having the options readily available to kind of guide me into a safe place where we could focus on treating the disease of addiction. I was fortunate enough to find a treatment bed in Massachusetts and go through the Massachusetts programs before moving up to a long-term transitional sober house in Nashua.

But as I work with those in new recovery now, I find that there is not a lot of options for those that call the Granite State their home. There is a shortage of beds. There’s a shortage of long-term beds, sober-living beds, there’s a shortage of inpatient detoxes — all things that I needed to be able to find myself in successful recovery six years later. I needed to be able to detox from the medications and I needed to be able to learn about the disease and learn skills on how to cope and how to live with life. I was a former college athlete that once interned for the district attorney’s office, but without a mind or mood-altering substance in my body, I couldn’t focus on how to do simple daily tasks. How to go apply for the job. How to deal with the thoughts and feelings that were the underlying cause of my drug and alcohol abuse.

What didn’t work was medicated-assisted treatment in the form of suboxone, for me. I had been put on suboxone a couple of times, and all I really did was drink more and smoke more marijuana. It didn’t help me deal with the fears, doubts and insecurities I had about myself in other situations on why I wanted to use. Just having knowledge that addiction was a disease wasn’t good enough without the tool set to be able to live one day at a time, clean and sober.

I wish more people would understand about opiate addiction or any addiction is that it centers in the brain. It’s a disease. At no point in time, when I was 5 years old, sitting in Kindergarten class did I put my hand up and ask to be a drug addict or an alcoholic. It’s something that eventually just happened.

I liked the way they made me feel. And they made me feel that I didn’t have to feel the way I felt inside. Those feelings and emotions and fears, doubts and insecurities — all those things went away when I put a mind- or mood-altering substance in my body. That’s what I’d like people to understand, that the “drug addict” is not a bad person; he or she is just a sick person. An addiction only affects two types of people, and that’s male and female.

I would also want them to know that recovery is possible, that there is hope, that someone who was in the gutter — robbing, stealing, lying — can become a great member of the community, a pillar of the community, as long as they take the necessary steps and actions that a lot of us in long-term recovery have.

What I learned most about my addiction is that I have a disease that controls how I think and feel, and for me that’s everything. And the best help that I was able to see was to be in a sober living facility for an extended period of time, almost up to a year, where I was able to practice the principles and learn about the 12 steps and give that a shot and learn other avenues on coping skills, but I was given the time to become the person that I wanted to become. And today I try to spread that message to all those afflicted with addiction, and I try to help as many people as possible.